Existence Qualified
by drufan
Summary: A second tag for Vegas, also not a fix it. This time it's John's turn. His drive to protect is what got him here. It is also what will see him to the end.


**Existence Qualified**

As all of the pieces of the puzzle connected, John laughed to himself. It was time to do the right thing. The song playing on the radio had been his theme for too long. It was time to give a damn again.

The _Camaro _did a one-eighty in the middle of the asphalt and John knew he had been played, expertly. His tour of Area 51 had been very informative. It had been plainly informative. It had been like a stereo salesman trying to get him to buy the big speakers for his one bedroom apartment.

McKay was definitely a guy who could play the game. He knew what to say, how to say it, and where to say it. His back and forth with the short guy with an accent had been convenient. The meeting with the nut-so alien had been appropriately disconcerting. His mention of Louisa-- well, McKay had really known which buttons to push.

It seemed to John that he was not quite finished with this sort of life yet. He'd do this one thing. He'd make sure the good guys won and then head on to Baja. There, he could regain his equilibrium again. He could be a solitary man without having to deal with other solitary men, who wanted a piece of John Sheppard.

McKay had met another version of him. That was enough to make John go stick his head in the sands of the Pacific coast and to ignore the world and its needs. Aliens lived among them and he had been chasing one around Las Vegas for weeks.

After he took care of this one last problem, he would stay gone. He would never want to chase another bad guy. He would spread on the sunscreen and jump on his board to surf. Maybe he would eat fish tacos and drink beer if it was a wild and crazy night. After this last thing, he would live the straight and narrow.

While following the power lines, his mind's eye saw Louisa smile at him as he watched her Humvee pull out of the base in Kandahar. It was not like he could have stopped her. She had had a job to do. He had tried to move heaven and hell to get her back. Rodney knew that the same drive that had ended his career would help them to find this Goth needle in a haystack. Yes, John knew he had been expertly played.

He fingered the silver cross as he pulled off the main road. The trailer and truck sat out in the open. There was nowhere to hide. Well, he was done with hiding. He just hadn't meant in this sense. Some hiding would have been a good thing. Not being able to hide would bite him right in ass. This he knew.

When the first bullet struck him, he saw the destiny the Looney Tunes had been talking about during their brief visit. It stretched before him clearly and well defined. He always had strived to protect and serve in some form. He could do no different. He should do no different. He would fight until his last breath.

However, when one lived this sort of life, one usually went out living it. The blood seeping from his wound matted his shirt against his skin. No, there was no fighting it. He was going to go out living this brash sort of life. Still, he would have loved to lie on a beach, south of the border, and not have had a care in the world-- no more monsters of any sort.

Louisa gazed at him again. Her dark brown eyes peeked out from under her helmet as he tried to reload his weapon. _I'll be there soon_, he thought because Baja was not going to happen.

He was outmatched. He would buy time for McKay to call in whomever he needed to call so they could do whatever they needed to do. John had wasted so much time. Now, it was his final possession and it was slipping through his fingers when he needed it most.

"_I once met another version of you…You were a hero, saved the world…"_

McKay had been waiting for something to click in John. Maybe, McKay had been blowing sunshine up his skirt. Maybe, McKay knew him as well as he thought he did, because John had not wanted to play the hero for a very long time and here he was with glass sprinkled in his hair and lead in his shoulder.

Until he had met McKay, John had wanted to keep his head down. He had wanted to muddle through life without ties to anyone, not even Mikey. Heroics had gotten him into trouble. Heroics had landed him here in the middle of nowhere instead of doing what he loved.

He returned fire and was struck again. That one hurt. He sat down and leaned against the tire. The sound of boots in the sand grew nearer, destiny stomping closer and closer.

Time. Destiny. Click-click. Gun empty. Blood flowing. Busy-busy-busy-busy.

He looked up at the pale face and thought, _just finish this._

Then the roar of Warthogs filled the air. Señor Manson went running. John closed his eyes.

"Time's up," he whispered.

Heat enveloped him. The explosions deafened him. This truly was a confluence of events ending with his final destiny in the desert.

The car was so hot he tried to stumble away from it. This time Louisa winked at him. He really would have liked to fly in outer space. It would have been so cool. It would have been neat to have been part of something again. He might have been solitary since Afghanistan, but this last duty had rejoined him with human kind.

He looked up into the deepening sky and said, "It's good to be here."

End


End file.
